


A Votre Place

by Quente



Series: En el sol [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Bro cuddles, French-Canadians have less shame, I should just name these stories "shit that happens on planes", M/M, Mention of Nathan MacKinnon, Pre-Slash, Tampa Bay Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quente/pseuds/Quente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Very beautiful,” Ceddy says, staring past Drouin. The plane courses forward and speeds up, the lift causing the familiar drop in Jo’s stomach, the same one he feels before a game. They go up, the lights recede away, and Ceddy stares down at the fading spiderwebs of city lights. “From up here, flying away from it, it’s brilliant. But fuck Toronto. Fuck the Leafs.” He’s speaking French with his rough Acadian accent, so his cursing sounds pithier than usual, and it settles somewhere deep inside Jo’s gut and resonates.</p><p>~</p><p>Jo Drouin is homesick and Cedric sounds like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Votre Place

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if you are following Tampa's season, but the stories in this series are being published alongside current events. On the date this was published, the Bolts flew out of Toronto at 1 AM, and landed in Tampa at 4 AM. This is what happened at 1.

“Good teams don’t lose back to back.” 

Jo sometimes wishes he didn’t know English as well as he does. He’s hearing the mutters from the distressed Tampa D, huddled somewhere in the bowels of their chartered plane. He opts to ignore the discussion and stare out the window instead, turning away from their hushed breakdown of the unfortunate game. 

Paquette, next to him, always lets Jo have the window seat. After their past year together in the Crunch, Ceddy knows that Jo’s favorite thing is to watch the ground fade into the distance until their plane is swallowed by clouds. The plane turns, and they’re in that in-between space again, not here or there or anywhere, in a cocoon shuttling them toward something new.

It is early. No, late. They’ve played; they’ve lost. They’ve had a meal and packed their shit up into bags that other people carry. It’s like any other year in the life of a young player, and by now Jo can’t really count the wins he’s had or the losses he’s suffered. Hundreds, or maybe at least a thousand.

“Very beautiful,” Ceddy says, staring past Drouin. The plane courses forward and speeds up, the lift causing the familiar drop in Jo’s stomach, the same one he feels before a game. They go up, the lights recede away, and Ceddy stares down at the fading spiderwebs of city lights. “From up here, flying away from it, it’s brilliant. But fuck Toronto. Fuck the Leafs.” He’s speaking French with his rough Acadian accent, so his cursing sounds pithier than usual, and it settles somewhere deep inside Jo’s gut and resonates.

Ceddy has more life in him than the rest of them, but he’s nervous with it, restless. He was the healthy scratch from their sad loss to a poor team, a loss in which they couldn’t get out of their own end to save their lives. Drouin wonders if they would’ve won if Paquette had been in the lineup instead of him. He suspects the AHL builds players that snarl their way toward goals because they’re within the barest breath of the show, but not quite there. He felt that way too, after being sent down the same year that his old linemate Nate went on to win the Calder; back to scoring easy goals against people who weren’t quite as good.

Jo learns to hide his frustration. Showing it gains him nothing, and makes him seem like the biggest tool in the box for being so ungrateful. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it, though. Luckily Jo finds Paquette waiting for him in the Crunch, waiting for a center to his line; the sound of his Acadian French greeting Jo like the sounds of childhood. He also finds Marchessault there, an older AHL veteran from near Jo’s hometown, and between Ceddy and Marchy their line scrapes and shoves their way toward victory. Jo’s never centered before, and they teach him how. 

He wants to kiss them every time their patient grind pays off -- and because they’re all Quebecois, sometimes Jo actually does. 

Tired as Jo is, he presses his arm against Ceddy’s restless body, easing his own ennui and Paquette’s jumpiness both at once. For once, Jo doesn’t want to talk about the game. He’s had a scant handful so far in the show and Ceddy even fewer, but a sense of confusion from their losses has washed over him tonight, and he’d rather think about something else for a while.

“Going home during the All-Star break?” Jo asks Ceddy quietly, and lets their knees bump too. He almost doesn’t care about the answer, he just wants more of that voice that sounds like the Atlantic coast.

“Yep, back to Gaspé. Mom would kill me if I didn’t, it’s been a while since I’ve been back. I don’t even know anymore where I live in America, but at least that won’t change,” Ceddy chuckles.

“I’ve never out there, to the peninsula. It’s kind of quiet, isn’t it? What do you do for fun?” A yawn takes him over, and Jo stretches, feeling the pop and ache of every move he made during his thirteen minutes of ice time.

“Aw, is my baby boy sleepy?” Ceddy mocks, but he pats his shoulder, and then reaches out to pull Jo’s head against it. “Here, rest, my little one.”

“Fuck you,” Jo grumbles, but he takes what’s offered. This is where he gets his touch, nowadays. From his hockey brothers, just like back in juniors. He’d missed it, and when he was up and Ceddy wasn’t, Jo kept his rookie head down and didn’t hit on any of the veterans for this kind of comfort. Jo sighs with the relief of it after the rough game, and feels the rise and fall of Paquette’s shoulder as he laughs.

“We need to find you a girl,” Ceddy says, shaking his head. 

“You’ll do for now,” Jo replies, snickering, and feels the light sting of Ceddy’s hand smacking his cheek. “Oi.”

They are silent for a moment, and Ceddy leans his head against Jo’s hair. Jo can feel the restful weight of it against him, and without meaning to, syncs his breath to the rise and fall of Paquette’s.

They’re fighting so often -- for the same spot, or on the same line, against an AHL team or against an NHL one -- that their bodies know each other inside and out. It’s intimate, this kind of knowledge, and the line between hockey and comfort and brotherly love and other things is a lot thinner than the Americans like to make it seem. Jo’s comfortable with the ambiguity.

He puts a hand on Ceddy’s leg, just lays it there, because it makes the surreptitious cuddling better. Ceddy turns his head and brushes a tiny mustachey smooch to the top of Jo’s hair. “You didn’t suck too badly tonight. The Leafs had a fire lit under their asses. It was do or die for them, and you were expecting an ordinary game.”

“All of that,” Jo agrees, thinking that Ceddy’s body has been getting thicker. For a guy that was just as wirey as Jo, Ceddy’s body has been filling out. Jo has a sudden memory of an awkward conversation with a Bolts press guy about how he’s “grown up into his manly body” in the past year, and his nose wrinkles.

“What?”

Jo describes his train of thought, from Ceddy’s new bulk to the cringeworthy press incident, and it has Ceddy’s shoulder quivering with laughter again.

“Oh god, I think I’ve met that guy. I feel like he’ll be crawling into my jock if I let him,” Ceddy says, accidentally loud enough that it makes some of the older guys turn and stare at them from the front of the plane. 

“Why are you discussing your sweaty undergarments?” Killorn asks in French that is shockingly perfect, surprising Jo. 

“Eh?” Jo lifts his head, blinking, and he stares at the larger guy whose expression is amused to have caught them out. “I thought you were from Hallifax, not...France?”

“I spent some years in the beautiful provence,” Killorn says. “So be careful what you say, young’un.”

Jo laughs again and asks a question or two, which opens up a discussion about QC, and what a country bumpkin Ceddy is for basically living within a spit of Newfoundland. It feels good, all of a sudden, to speak the language he grew up with to the men on his team. English is the price of playing in the NHL, but the chatter feels like a sweetly stolen twenty minutes of _home_.

“But your accent isn’t actually Canadian,” Ceddy objects in his country lilt, and suddenly Killorn looks shy. It’s a funny expression on such a big guy, and it catches the attention of Stammer, who is drowsing near them.

“What are you kids teasing Killer about?” Stammer asks, a little half-smile playing around the stressed lines of his face. “Don’t be too hard on him, he scored a goal tonight.”

“He owes me one still after that interference call,” Jo grumbles, switching back to English. “We were trying to figure out how this Hallifax guy can speak French like he’s from Paris.”

Stammer shifts a sly look at Killorn, and then back to them. “You gonna tell them, Killer? Or let them google it?”

Killorn rolls his eyes, and then looks away as he mutters, “Oh, fine. I brushed up on my French in college.”

“Oh yeah, where?”

Stammer starts to chuckle, and Killorn is definitely glaring at him now.

“Harvard. What’s so goddamned funny, Tibia?”

Stammer reaches out and gives him a none too gentle tap on the head. “I already said no nicknames from that goddamned injury.” There’s a sigh in his tone, and Killorn immediately drops the attitude.

“Yes, cap. But yeah, I actually graduated from that place. It’s why I’m so fucking old in this game.”

They all chuckle because it’s stupidly true. Even relatively new, at 25, Killorn is at the very height of his career, a year older than Stamkos and with maybe five good years left in front of him (unless he somehow achieves something legendary like Jagr). 

That thought knocks Jo back against his seat, and he’s quiet as the other guys keep talking, his hand still idly marking the flex and release of Ceddy’s thigh. Jo is so young, but suddenly feels like there's no time left. This year is overwhelming. Their losses are frighteningly huge, and everything gets nationwide press. His goals, or lack of goals, are subject to discussion by everyone in the league, and he hasn’t spoken to his parents in at least a week.

Jo doesn’t realize that Ceddy’s looking at him while he tries to blink back the tiniest bit of liquid in his eyes, not until a hand closes firmly over his in a grip that is not as awkward as it is kind.

“Hey. It’s just a few games out of 82. Fuck it,” Ceddy says softly, his voice once again in the rough tones of Acadia. “Just grow.”

Jo takes a shaky breath and squeezes Ceddy’s hand. He clings like it’s a lifeline and remembers a few nights back in Juniors when the hand was Nate’s and they clung together with all the uncertainty of boys with little else surrounding them but hockey. Jo still feels that young, but the comfort of his brothers-in-arms is still there. “Thanks.”

“It’s ok, Jo.” Ceddy’s free hand tilts Jo’s head back against his shoulder. “It’s late. I’ll be your pillow tonight.”

Jo curls in without any shame, taking what’s offered, snuggling up. Once again their breath syncs, but this time, Jo lets himself drift.

It feels like only minutes before Ceddy’s gently shaking his shoulder.

“Hey, we’re ...’home.’”

The lights of Tampa are a soft, sleepy sprinkle around the bay. Everything’s still dark. There’s another game Saturday, and soon it’ll be dawn.


End file.
